Here is a time line that I am putting together.
This is just the rough outline at the moment, I will try to fill in more details as time goes by.
.
1923
June – My paternal grandmother is born in the Athabasca region of Alberta.
1935
October – As she is Swampy Cree, grandma is enrolled in an Indian Residential School named Holy Angels located at Fort Chipewyan, AB.
1938
March – Grandma leaves Residential School
1941
– Uncle Norman born
1946
June – Richard Gill (my father) born in Peterborough, Ontario
December – Marie Annette Jacqueline Dagenais (my mother) born in Hull, Quebec
My father’s father leaves the family. Unsure of the details.
Grandma relocates her family back to Fort McMurray, Alberta
1963
Richard joins the Royal Canadian Navy with a grade 9 education
1967
– Richard and Marie married
Marie had met Richard via her brother Al. Al and Richard served in the navy together.
1968
Unification of the Canadian Forces, Richard remusters into the Air Force.
1969
July –
Richard is photographed as a member of the Sea Kings on HMCS Ottawa, the first ship of the Canadian Forces where French is the primary language spoken.
October 29th –
The HMCS Ottawa was amongst the ships that were returning from the United Kingdom as part of exercises. The HMCS Kootenay suffered a major explosion in the engine room due to faulty maintenance. 9 members killed, including three that had been my father’s drinking buddies when he was in the Royal Canadian Navy before unification. As Richard was attached to the Sea Kings he would have been involved with the rescue flights flown to evacuate crew members from the HMCS Kootenay.
According to Bill Parker my father’s personality changed for the worse in the aftermath of the Kootenay. He was no longer pleasant to be around. He was very moody, very withdrawn, and his drinking was getting the better of him.
1971
I was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia
moved into my first military PMQ – 23 Seafire Ave on Canadian Forces Base Shearwater
moved into my second military PMQ – 14 Fulmar Ave on Canadian Forces Base Shearwater.
1974
– Scott born in Halifax Nova Scotia
Captain Father Angus McRae investigated and charged for committing “Acts of Homosexuality” at Canadian Forces Base Kingston / Royal Military College Kingston. It would appear that McRae’s commanding officer did not approve of the charges.
1971 to 1976
– My mother made frequent use of what was called “The Battered Wives Club” on CFB Shearwater. This was a loose knit group of military families that would often take in the wives and their children from abusive military households as the military at that time didn’t consider domestic issues to be a concern of theirs.
1976 –
My frequent visits and lodgings at the IWK Children’s Hospital in Halifax prompt medical staff to ponder about getting social services involved as the medical staff have concerns about my father and my mother.
My first posting. My father was posted to Canadian Forces Base Summerside on Prince Edward Island. We lived at 353 High St in the town of Summerside. This housing development had been built for the Canadian Armed Forces for housing families of military members. As such the Defence Establishment Trespass Regulations applied to all civilians living in this housing.
1977
January –
my father arrested for domestic assault and battery. He had apparently gotten into a fist fight with his own mother / my grandmother when she had come out to visit us over the ’76 Xmas holidays. Both were apparently quite intoxicated while this was going on.
My father’s drinking increases exponentially. He is more angry than ever and often breaks things or smashes things. Fights between my mother and my father increase with my mother often taking my brother and I to go stay with “relatives” that weren’t our relatives.
Spring –
My mother suddenly left just before the summer of 1977. My father would explain that my mother was a slut and a whore that ran off with a guy named Gus from the P.P.C.L.I.
It turns out that my father used the Defence Establishment Trespass Regulations to have my mother ejected from the PMQ. This was a common practice that was documented in a document called “Canadian Forces Response to Spousal Abuse in Military Families” which was a report that was commissioned by the Canadian Armed Forces.
Summer –
My grandmother arrives from Edmonton, Alberta to raise my brother and I. I get chucked into Sunday School.
1978
June –
Grandma returns to Edmonton
July –
I’m hospitalized after an incident on my bicycle. No next of kin listed on my admission records.
Note on my admission records state “Father in Iceland with Airforce, will return this evening”. Iceland hosts an airfield that is used by NATO countries. Also, prior to 2006, the United States leased land and ran an Airforce base there.August
Captain Father Angus McRae arrives at Canadian Forces Base Namao after having been transferred there from Canadian Forces Station Holberg on Vancouver Island.
Scuttlebutt on one of the Facebook groups for base brats indicate that Captain Father Angus McRae was transferred to Edmonton as a result of an interaction that he had with a teenaged boy on CFS Holberg.
My family arrives on Canadian Forces Base Namao after my father had obtain a compassionate posting from the Eastern Command social worker.
September
Grandma and her husband Roy (Andy) William Anderson move into the PMQ on Canadian Forces Base Namao to raise my brother and I. My father would claim that “training exercises” kept him away from home for 6 to 8 week stretches at a time
Grandma starts taking Scott and I to Sunday service at the base chapel.
November
After a night of heavy drinking with grandma, Andy decides to take a shower to help him sober up. Andy slips in the bathtub and cracks his skull on the rim on the bathtub.
My grandmother didn’t have a driver’s licence. Captain Father Angus McRae, the base chaplain, would occasionally give her rides into Edmonton to see Andy at the Misericordia
During these visits we were looked after by a male teenaged babysitter who would later be revealed to be an altar boy of the chaplain. This babysitter would also be described as a pedophile as a result of molesting children across Canada.
1979
My father meets a woman named Vicki whom lives in Wetaskiwin. My father frequently stays at her place until they break up.
My father meets a new girlfriend whom would end up becoming his second wife. My father met this woman through his half-sisters who attended highschool with this woman in Oshawa, Ontario.
My father would live off base with his girlfriends as he didn’t want to bring them home to meet his mother as grandma was adamant that Richard must get back together with Marie. Grandma would tell me to not believe anything Richard had said about Marie and that the truth would come out one day
Over the course of 1979 and into 1980 the abuse at the hands of the babysitter increases at a marked rate. The babysitter is becoming more aggressive with his abuse and even begins to demand penetration.
There are a few times where the babysitter would find me on base and escort me over to the chapel. Once in the chapel we’d go into the rectory where the father was. We’d have wafers, watch TV, listen to music. The father had a collection of magazines that looked like the ones my uncle had, so I never thought anything bad about them. And besides up at 447 squadron in the canteen they also had the same magazines and some of the centrefolds on the walls. After looking at the magazines or listening to music the father would give me a tumbler full of a “sickly sweet grape juice”. I never remember going home after these visits.
1980
April
The babysitter had me over to his family’s PMQ and was buggering me in his bedroom. His younger brother walked in and caught the babysitter in the act of buggering me. This younger brother notified numerous other kids on the base.
A group of about 10 to 12 older teens gathered on the lawn of babysitter’s PMQ and started throwing rocks and yelling homophobic taunts up at the window.
When I was leaving the babysitter’s PMQ to go home I was attacked by a group of teens and beat up in the middle of 12th Street.
My life on base became a living hell after that. I was no longer allowed to play with the other kids. I was no longer allowed to go to the base pool. I was no longer allowed to go to the “kid’s disco” at the Lamplighter Pub on Saturdays.
May
The babysitter is investigated by the base military police based upon numerous reports received from the parents of military families on base that the babysitter had been molesting their children.
As a result of the investigation of the babysitter the military police became aware of Captain Father Angus McRae’s involvement with molesting children on the base.
A decision is made by the base chain of command to not call in the Morinville RCMP to handle the babysitter. The National Defence Act states that military dependents are only subject to the Code of Service Discipline when accompanying their serving parent anywhere outside of Canada. Why the Canadian Forces thought that it had any power to withhold the babysitter’s crimes from the RCMP is unknown. It was claimed that the babysitter was only 12 years old in 1980. The babysitter has been confirmed to have been born on June 23rd, 1965.
On May 12th, 1980 Captain David Pilling requests that Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit acting section commander Warrant Officer Fredrick Cunningham initiate an investigation into Captain Father Angus McRae for having committed “acts of homosexuality” with teenaged boys on the base.
Over the course of the investigation Warrant Officer Cunningham meets with Base Commander Colonel Daniel Edward Munro. At one of these meetings Cunningham requests that Munro confine McRae to his quarters so that McRae is unable to interfere with the CFSIU investigation by using his command authority as a captain to intimidate ranks lower than his and enlisted parents.
June
Prior to June 20th, The CFNIS have numerous charges against Captain McRae related to the abuse of numerous children, but the brass orders the number of charges brought against Captain McRae to be reduced to only those related to the charges involving the babysitter.
Prior to 1998 it was the commanding officer of the accused, and not the provincial crown prosecutor, that would recommend for or against charges and then cause these charges to flow to either summary trial, courts martial, or even to the civilian courts.
One of the other boys took great offence and blamed the babysitter for the charges relating to their abuse not going forward. This other boy was noted by Fred Cunningham to be a “prolific pyromaniac”. Canadian Forces fire marshal records would verify that this boy had lit fires in his own PMQ in an attempt to “play the hero” by discovering the fires and calling for help.
June 20th – Fire at PMQ #26. This is the babysitter’s PMQ. The babysitter was not home at the time. The babysitter’s mother had noticed the faint smell of natural gas in the morning and had called the Base Construction engineers to take a look at the leak. The babysitter’s sister was in the shower having a shower.
The babysitter’s mother was in the kitchen watching the construction engineer looking for a gas leak. As the engineer was moving the stove back into place, the gas line ruptured.
The gas ignited into a “torch” and started a fire that engulfed the kitchen and started to spread into the dining room.
In an attempt to shut the gas off, the construction engineer ran into the basement where he collapsed and died from a heart attack. The mother had to rescue her daughter from the PMQ. Total damage to the PMQ was $56k in 1980 dollars. The PMQ was worth $70k in 1980 dollars.
Base Commander Colonel Daniel Edward Munro was satisfied with the military fire marshal’s report that it was obviously just a defective gas line on the stove and that calling in the provincial fire marshal to conduct their own investigation was not required.
It should be pointed out that the gas stove was located just inside the back door of the PMQ. The back door of the PMQ faced the roadway and the front doors faced a common area lawn. To give the hose a slight tug to cause a small leak wouldn’t have been that hard to do.
June 28th – Captain McRae officially arrested and charged with the service offences of Gross Indecency, Indecent Assault, and Buggery.
Captain McRae requests a military courts martial.
July
15th through 18th Captain McRae’s Courts Martial.
The babysitter and his family were living on Canadian Forces Base Petawawa in Ontario when the Canadian Forces requested the babysitter return on his own to testify against Captain McRae. The babysitter’s father objects to this and the Canadian Forces relent and allow the babysitter’s father to return to Edmonton with his 15 year old son. The father is barred by the Canadian Forces from entering the courts martial.
During the courts martial, the courts martial panel hears that Captain McRae admitted during his ecclesiastical trial with the catholic church to having molested numerous boys for years.
Entered into evidence is that the investigation discovered that Captain McRae had been receiving the children of service members in the rectory of the base chapel and had been giving these children alcohol and then taking them into the bedroom to “fool around” with them.
After hearing the evidence against him as well as the babysitter’s testimony, Captain McRae changes his plea from innocent to guilty.
Captain McRae sentenced to 4 years which was reduced numerous times over the next few months. Captain McRae ended up serving a sentence of 10 months.
Minister of National Defence Gilles LaMontagne approves of the sentence applied by the courts martial panel.
The media catches wind of this event, but the Canadian Armed Forces quickly throw a “wall of secrecy” around the courts martial and permanently seal all of the documents and evidence.
August
My father moves back into the PMQ with his new girlfriend. He had been living off base with her.
September
During the start of the school year at McArthur school, the school on base for military dependents, I am frequently beat up and teased for being the babysitter’s “girlfriend” and/or “wife”. This is my introduction to slurs like “homo”, “faggot”, “queer”, and “cocksucker”
Towards the end of September my family was moved from CFB Namao to CFB Griesbach. These two bases we 10km apart from each other
October
My brother and I are brought to the attention of Canadian Forces military social worker Captain Terry Totzke by our respective teachers and principal at Major General Griesbach School, the school on base for the children of military families.
November
My family is interviewed on separate occasions by a psychiatrist.
My father is found to accept no responsibility for his family, he likes to play the victim, he feels like everyone is attacking him, he blames others for his problems, he expects others to solve his problems for him.
I am found to be suffering from major depression, severe anxiety, haphephobia, have extremely low self esteem. I am also found to be very poorly informed about sex. I mention that I am terrified of my father and that I expect him to drown me in the toilet. I also remark that “my brain tells me that I’m going to kill myself if granny doesn’t leave the house”.
My brother is found to be a very quiet, lonely, and isolated child.
1980 – 1983
During the course of my involvement with Captain Terry Totzke he would often come to school to talk with me in the office. Other times he would come and pick me up at the school and drive me over to base headquarters where he had an office. Other time my father would take me to see Captain Totzke.
As I had never seen Captain Terry Totzke in uniform I would never realize until 2011 that Terry was a member of the Canadian Armed Forces and that he held the rank of captain.
Terry knew about what had happened on Canadian Forces Base Namao.
Terry was concerned that I was exhibiting signs of a mental illness called homosexuality as I had been known to be having sex with the babysitter.
Terry was concerned that I had allowed the babysitter to molest my younger brother.
Terry had mentioned to me that he had asked the base military police to keep an eye on me and that if I ever tried to kiss or touch another boy that I would be off to the Alberta Psychiatric Hospital for treatment.
Terry said that I should avoid situations where I would see other boys naked as that would awaken my desires to touch them. This resulted in me not playing sports anymore or being allowed to go swimming anymore.
Once Alberta Social Services became involved with my family, Terry and my father would both inform me that I had to be very careful with what I told Pat and Wayne as Pat and Wayne would twist my words and use my words against me.
1981
During the summer of 1981 Grandma moves out of the PMQ.
After Grandma moves out Sue promises my brother and I that if we never want to go to church again that we don’t have to.
November – Due to the inaction of Captain Terry Totzke with my brother and I, our respective teachers and our principal notify Alberta Social Services. As the PMQ that I lived in and the school I was attending were on a Defence Establishment, Alberta Social Services pretty well required Totzke’s permission for their dealings with me.
1982
Richard and Sue are still having great difficulty in their relationship.
Social Services note that Richard and Sue refuse to talk to each other or even acknowledge each other during the counselling sessions and instead Richard uses me to communicate with Sue and Sue uses Scott to communicate with Richard.
Richard informs Scott and I that if Sue leaves him, he’s going to put our dead bodies into a duffle bag and that no one will ever find the either of us and that he’ll just go live in the barracks. This isn’t the first time that Richard has sworn that he would kill Scott and I, but this is the most memorable.
Richard and Sue get married in a private ceremony in the PMQ on base. My brother and I are given $50 each and told to go away for the day and to not come back until close to bed time.
In the spring of 1982 I am formally admitted into the Westfield Program for emotionally disturbed children until a psychiatric bed can be located. My father signs the paperwork surrendering me to the Westfield Receiving Home for Children. Neither Richard nor Captain Totzke seem to realize that by signing this paperwork Richard has placed me into the foster care system.
Both my father and Terry tell me that my involvement with this program is due to my attraction to boys and that this program would help me get over my homosexuality.
During various meetings with Alberta Social Services my father claims that my issues are due to his mother “who was extremely cruel to his children, especially when she was intoxicated, which was frequently”, he explained to Alberta Social Services that he had brought his mother into the house to raise his children after his wife “abandoned” him. He further explains that his mother is an alcoholic who refuses to seek treatment for her drinking issues.
The babysitter is arrested and convicted for molesting a young boy in a small town just north of Canadian Forces Base Petawawa in Ontario.
Christmas ’82. We fly out from Edmonton to stay with Richard’s father in Oshawa, ON.
Richard and his father do not appear to be in friendly terms. Even though we moved to Canadian Forces Base Downsview in April of 1983 and would frequently go visit Sue’s parents in Oshawa, we never again ever saw Richard’s father even though he lived about 10 blocks away from Sue’s parents.
1983
January
26th – Captain Totzke instructed by my civilian case worker and my two child care workers that he is to inform my father and my father’s commanding officer that my father is to start attending all family counselling sessions or I am to be removed from the house and placed into either residential care or foster care.
28th – Captain Totzke informs my civilian social workers that my father has just been transferred from Alberta to Ontario effective immediately and that the move will occur in April.
Sometime between January 1983 and April 1983 my father keeps me home from the Westfield Program. He tells me that I was expelled from the program because I wouldn’t stop kissing and touching other boys.
April
a moving truck arrives one day without notice. The majority of my belongings are piled up at the curb to be disposed of. Later that day we are loaded up in the Datsun B210 for the trip to Ontario. When we cross the Saskatchewan border I asked my father why we had to move. His reply was that because I was still showing signs of being attracted to boys that the counsellors wanted to give me drugs to stop this attraction but that he didn’t want me to take those drugs and that I had to understand that he was saving me.
Alberta Social Services gave Children’s Aid Society of Toronto a heads-up about the imminent arrival of my family. Children’s Aid tried to contact my father via the Canadian Armed Forces. The Canadian Armed Forces stonewalled C.A.S.T.. C.A.S.T. ended up tracking my brother and I down through the public school system.
My father and Captain Totzke had given Alberta Social Services assurances that I would be placed in a psychiatric hospital to receive treatment upon our arrival at Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario.
I was instead enrolled at Sheppard Public School as CFB Downsview did not have its own school for military dependents.
October
Roy (Andy) William Anderson dies at the age of 58 after having spent the last 5 years in hospitals and nursing homes having never recovered from the slip in the bathtub in the PMQ on Canadian Forces Base Namao.
My father almost succeeded in conning Children’s Aid into believing that there was no reason for Alberta Social Services to be involved with his family and that Pat and Wayne had blown everything out of proportion.
1984
Children’s Aid and the North York Board of Education come to realize that there is intense sibling rivalry between my brother and I, and both agencies comes to the realization that Scott and I can never be at the same school.
Richard sent my brother and I up to Edmonton to spend the summer with our grandmother. Grandma’s drinking has peaked, probably due to the death of her husband in October of ’83.
Scott mentioned something to grandma about the babysitter. This sent grandma in to a rage and fury. Grandma wanted to know if I knew what the babysitter had done to Scott. I managed to escape the apartment and made my way up to CFB Namao. Once at Namao I tried to report the babysitter to the military police. The Military Police said that as the babysitter was a military dependent he had to be dealt with by the civilian police. So I went back to Edmonton and this time went to the Edmonton Police Service. This did not work out at all.
Grandma gave me my first beers to drink after she caught me sipping the foam off a pair of bottles that she asked me to open for her and her friend Hazel.
During the summer of ’84 grandma takes Scott and I out to Terrace, BC to see her first son, our uncle Norman. Unlike my father and my uncle Doug who were only metis, Uncle Norman was full blood. Uncle Norman was about 6 to 8 years older than my father. My father was born when my grandmother was 23.
In October of 1984 a fellow base brat from CFB Downsview and I were in the same behavioural therapy program at Elia Jr. High and Dellcrest. He convinced me that I should join Sea Cadets over at the Dennison Armouries.
My babysitter was convicted in 1984 for molesting an 8 year old boy in Manitoba.
A search of newspaper records indicate that in 1982 a 17 year old male babysitter had molested numerous children in a neighbourhood directly adjacent to Canadian Forces Base Winnipeg. The mother of some of the molested children was upset that the 17 year old babysitter had never been charged due to the young age of the victims
My babysitter would have been 17 years old in 1982
Even though his family had been residing on CFB Petawawa in 1982, his family may have been posted to CFB Winnipeg to get away from CFB Petawawa. Posting problems to other bases was a known phenomenon back in the day.
Late 1984 – Early 1985
Scott has his first Grand Mal seizure.
Richard had discovered Scott, called the ambulance, and went to North York General with Scott.
I had been out of the house all day, but when I arrived home Sue told me to get straight up to my room. She mentioned nothing about Scott. She just said that Richard wanted me waiting in my room when he got home.
When Richard came home he was slamming doors. Richard and Sue started yelling at each other.
Richard stormed up the stairs and into my room. Before saying anything he gave me a massive backhand across my face that drew blood and knocked me to the floor. Richard then started demanding to know where the drugs were that I gave to Scott. I kept asking “what drugs?” which only made him more furious. He started tearing my room apart stating that if and when he found the drugs he was going to make the next beating even worse than this one.
A few days later when Scott was released from the hospital all Richard would say is that I was goddamn lucky that Scott had Gran Mal Epilepsy and that I hadn’t given Scott any drugs.
What has always been perplexing about this is that Richard knew that Marie’s mother had died of an epileptic seizure and that one of Marie’s brothers had epilepsy.
1985
The babysitter’s family arrives back on Canadian Forces Base Namao.
In May the babysitter is found molesting a 9 year old boy that lives on the base. He is charged by the civilian police for this matter.
The babysitter is ordered off the base by the Canadian Armed Forces. The babysitter’s father rents him an apartment in the West End of Edmonton.
In June the babysitter is arrested and charged for molesting a 13 year old newspaper carrier. The babysitter lures the newspaper carrier to his apartment with video games.
In August the babysitter is convicted in court of the charges relating to the boy from CFB Namao and the newspaper carrier. The Alberta crown prosecutor specifically mentions that the babysitter is a danger to children and informs the court of the babysitter’s conviction in Manitoba in 1984 for molesting a young child.
July
Richard sends Scott and I to spend another summer with grandma.
Somewhere between the summer of ’84 and this summer, grandma has “found jesus” again. She’s given up drinking. She frequently drags my brother and I to church service at St. Joseph’s Basilica on Sundays. She had even joined AA and appears to have stopped drinking. This is a new experience as I had never really seen grandma sober.
Sober grandma was not as pleasant as intoxicated grandma.
August
My father and my mother finalize their divorce. Somehow Sue discovers this and there is a massive domestic disturbance in the PMQ on Canadian Forces Base Downsview that results in my father being detained by the base military police.
During the investigation, the military police hear disturbing things from the neighbours about how my father treats my brother and I. As the military police can’t find us, they ask Richard where we are. Richard tells them we’re in Edmonton with our grandmother. The CFB Downsview military police contact the Edmonton Police Service and ask the EPS to do a welfare check on my brother and I.
Upon our return to Toronto after having spent the summer in Edmonton the base military police had to speak to my brother and I about concerns they had for our safety living with our father. A couple of recommendation from the military police. Get out of the house if my father starts raging out. Jump from the second story window if necessary. Call for help from inside someone else’s PMQ. Never call 9-1-1, call the base military police instead as the civilian police can’t just respond to calls from on the base.
I was after this visit by the military police that I had my first inkling about the HMCS Kootenay. Bill didn’t name the ship, but he said that my father had been at sea and he had lost some very close friends in an “engine room explosion” and that Richard was never the same after that day. Bill said that he knew my father had a temper and that my father was prone to violence and that he had been hitting my brother and I, but Bill said that I had to forgive my father. Bill said that he really wished I knew my father before the “engine room explosion” as he was a much different guy. Bill said that much like on Shearwater, my brother and I were always welcome to come stay in his PMQ when my father was out of control and we needed a place to stay for a while.
September
My father surprises me with a small birthday cake and a card with $20 inside. He apologized for not remembering my birthday for the last few years (since 1977 to be exact). Promises that he will never forget again. This would be the last birthday acknowledgement that I ever had from him.
I wouldn’t discover until 2011 that we were under the supervision of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto and that he was just buttering me up incase CAST was to find out about the massive domestic dispute that had occurred over the summer of ’85.
1986
Attended cadet camp at RMC Kingston
1 week prior to the end of summer training camp we were to call our parents to see if they were going to attend the graduating ceremonies and then drive us home after. That’s when I discovered that my father had signed my brother out of juvenile detention and he was going to take my brother and our stepmother to Washington, DC for a vacation and that I would have to take the bus from Kingston to Toronto.
1987
February – Over the protests of the executive officer of my sea cadet corp., my father enrols my brother in the sea cadet corp that I am a member of. This XO worked with at-risk-youth involved in the criminal justice system. This XO had informed me that my brother had been giving the police my name and my DOB whenever he had been arrested. The XO did not want my brother in the corp as he couldn’t trust my brother.
May – After the disastrous cadet weekend at Canadian Forces Base Borden, I quit cadets. The XO ‘knew’ that my brother had joined in with some of the troublemakers from a different cadet corp that were staying in the same barracks as we were and had snuck over to the female’s side of the barracks. I highly suspected that Scott had done what he was accused of, but if I would have told the XO that my brother did do what he was accused of my father would have beaten the shit out of me for “not looking out for” my younger brother and allowing him to get into trouble.
My brother by this point had been in and out of group homes and juvie. He was hanging out with a group of small time thugs and would engage in strong armed robbery, B&E into hotel rooms and houses, stealing cars, etc.
August – Grandma dies.
September – picked up all of the forms and all of the paperwork required to allow me to get my learner’s permit and sign up for the Young Driver’s of Canada program. My father explains that I cannot have my driver’s licence as long as I live under his roof as this will make his insurance rates go up. If I want my licence I need to move out.
Fall –
Scott had stolen our stepmother’s Chevrolet Chevette and went for a joyride with his the guys he hung out with. They nearly didn’t make it off the base as Scott lost control of the Chevette on the circular road for the PMQs and nearly struck a utility pole. Numerous people reported him to the military police, but he had gotten off base by the time the MPs arrived.
I was asleep in my bed in my bedroom in the basement as I often slept in due to chronic fatigue due to my depression.
Richard had come home from grocery shopping with Sue when they both noticed that the Chevette wasn’t in the parking space.
Richard grabbed me by the ankle and yanked me out of bed. My head hit the concrete floor. Richard started punching me and kicking me demanding to know what I did with the Chevette. As I was trying to crawl under my bed to get away from him he’d just pull me back out. I kept telling him that I didn’t know what he was talking about as I was asleep. He then started ranting about how I wasn’t raising Scott right, that I didn’t protect Scott from the babysitter, that Scott was acting out the way he was because I let the babysitter molest him.
November – dropped out of school and moved out of the house shortly there after. My father’s anger was getting out of control and my father had lost complete control of my brother. Even my father was afraid of my younger brother.
Started working full time and started renting a room in a house just off base. The house was a PMQ in the LDH housing that was off base but was adjacent to where I worked. It was rented by a member of the Canadian Forces who had just split up with his wife. His wife took the kids. As the wife was civilian she had to move out. This member did not want to move out of military housing and he did not want to move into the barracks, so he kept renting this PMQ and had decided to rent two of the three bedrooms out.
1988
Worked. Worked a lot.
1989
One of the owners of the company that I worked for had a friend in Timmins, Ontario that needed some help with servicing their amusement machines, so I was asked if I would like to spend a few weeks up north. I went up north and spent most of my time servicing video games, pinball machines, and jukeboxes that had been provided by this company to the various community centres on the Indian reservations on the shores of James Bay.
When I returned to Toronto that summer, I found out rather abruptly that the Canadian Forces forbade the renting of rooms in the PMQs and that I had to find a new place to live. So I moved into my car at the base auto club carefully sleeping in the back and sneaking on and off base to get to my car.
One day while heading to work I encountered Mr. Bowles, my former science teacher from Pierre Laporte. He implored me that I had to finish school, that I had way too much potential to waste. He said that if I was willing, he would get my other favourite teachers like Mr. Ford and Mr. Atkinson to write letters to a school program called A.I.S.P., the Alternative and Independent Study Program. He said that A.I.S.P. was ideal for kid who didn’t fit into the typical school programs or structures.
I was accepted into A.I.S.P.
As I needed a place to stay, I went back to Richard and asked him if it was possible to stay at his place until I finished A.I.S.P.. I explained to him that I intended to take grades 9 and grade 10 in the first year, and grade 11 and 12 in the second year. He accepted.
A.I.S.P. was is a unique program that placed heavy emphasis on the Independent portion of its name. At the time is was run from the second floor of a former elementary school. At the time the school was running only kindergarten and a few of the first grades on the lower floor. A.I.S.P. had the second floor. There was definitely not enough room in this school to house the resources that grades 7 through 12 would require. And there definitely wasn’t enough room to accommodate all of the students if the students were to all show up at the same time.
This is where the “independent” portion of the name came into play. Any branch of the North York Public Library or any library from any of the local junior high or high schools were available to us for study or for research. If we wanted to drop in on a subject being taught we could just show up at a local junior high or high school and sit in on their class. Our physical education programs took advantage of the various locals school. Yes, the teachers at A.I.S.P. ran classes but it was more like “here’s your assignment for the next week, hand in your work when you’ve completed it”
I was walking from A.I.S.P. to the North York public library main branch which was just north of Yonge and Sheppard in North York. My father also worked in the government of Canada federal building at 4900 Yonge Street, which was right across from the library. I don’t know where Richard was going to, but he saw me and the kids I were with. In typical Richard dramatic fashion he floored his Mustang GT, pulled a u-turn in the intersection of Yonge and Sheppard, raced up beside us, and then jumped on the brakes. He got out of the car in and in a profanity laced tirade wanted to know what the fuck I was doing out of school, did I take him for a fucking idiot? How fucking long did I think that I was going to be able to pull this shit off for.
When I got home that night, Richard was ranting again about A.I.S.P. and that he wanted me to”the fuck out of that fucking school and back into a normal fucking school” and that all I had to do was “sit the fuck down, look at the fucking blackboard, and mind my own fucking business” he even suggested that I just “take some fucking basket weaving courses” to get my grade twelve.
Things did not get any better over the next couple of weeks. I ended up dropping out of school again and I got a job
1991
1992
Moved to Vancouver in February of 1992
1993
1994 –
Arrived back in Vancouver from Toronto.
End up with a room at the Sally Anne on Dunsmuir street. EI took a couple of weeks to reroute from Toronto to Vancouver. Received BC social service assistance which was to be paid back.
It was becoming painfully self evident that only those with supportive parents met success in life and that I was destined to forever be wasting my life making welfare wages.
I had been eying up the Lions Gate Bridge for a couple of weeks. Knew that I wouldn’t be able to simply jump off, but that I would have to drink some liquid courage but doing so would put me at risk of being discovered.
Saturday June 11th made my way to the Lions Gate Bridge.
1995
1996
1997 – As a result of the finding of the Somalia Inquiry, the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit is disbanded and replaced by the Canadian Forces National investigation Unit. The Provost Marshal is stood up for the first time since the ’60s. All military police are placed under the command of the Provost Marshal and are in theory removed from the local chain of command, but the changes in the National Defence Act fall critically short of placing members of the base military police and the CFNIS outside of the overall chain of command, and thus investigators with the base military police and the CFNIS must still obey the lawful commands of anyone with a superior rank.
1998
Bill C-25(1998) “An Act to Make Amendments to the National Defence Act” passed in the House of Commons.
There are two key sections to this bill.
The first is the removal of the 3-year-time-bar from the National Defence Act and the application of the relevant Criminal Code “statute of limitations” for Service Offences that are Criminal Code in nature.
The second is the removal of the requirement for the commanding officer to conduct a summary review of the investigation. Also removed are the commanding officer’s ability to summarily dismiss charges brought against their subordinate. Charges will now be reviewed by a military prosecutor.
Unfortunately there is no language in the Act to apply these changes retroactively.
1999
2000
The babysitter attempts suicide
2001
March 2001 – As a result of the previous year’s suicide attempt, the babysitter hires an Edmonton based lawyer and initiates a $4.5 million dollar civil action in the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench against Angus McRae, the Archdiocese of Edmonton, the Canadian Armed Forces, and the Department of National Defence.
The Department of Justice represents the CAF and the DND.
2005
2006
August – made contact with Richard via voice mail.
Let Richard know that I was sick and tired of being blamed for what had happened on CFB Namao and that I was sick and tired of always being blamed for having “fucked” with his military career. I was sick and tired of always hearing from Scott of all of the things that Richard had done for him. I told him that I was seriously considering going to the police with a complaint against the babysitter.
Richard called me back the next morning, his voice was shaking.
He wanted to know why I just didn’t simply move on.
He said that everyone made choices back in 1980 and that there was no undoing the past.
Richard told me that I had to understand something about the babysitter. He said that it was his mother who hired the babysitter, not him. He said that he told grandma that he found the babysitter to be creepy and not very trustworthy, but that grandma wasn’t going to listen to him. Richard had no problem recalling the babysitter’s name.
For the next couple of weeks Richard would call me on a daily basis to see how I was and to have small talk that sounded very forced.
The calls stopped after a few weeks.
I never spoke to Richard again after that.
2008
I decide to make a change in my life to escape the past. I start looking into legally changing my name.
May of 2008 my name is officially changed to Bobbie Garnet Bees.
Department of Justice communicates with the babysitter’s lawyer and signals their intentions to pay a settlement
Cheque issued to babysitter. Amount paid unknown.
2011
In March of 2011 I decide to finally go after the babysitter. I figured that if I could get the babysitter to admit to what he had done that Richard would finally stop blaming me.
March 4th, 2011 I sent an email off to the Edmonton Police Service asking how I would go about pressing charges against my former babysitter.
The Edmonton Police Service forwards my query off to the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team and asks ASIRT who’s jurisdiction my complaint belongs to. ASIRT in turn forwards my complaint off to the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service at Edmonton Garrison.
2012
2013
2015
2016
2018
2020
Beeshive 